CONTENTS
- Qsim
- BRICS- AGRICULTURE RESEARCH PLATFORM
Qsim
Focus: GS III- Science and technology
Why in News?
Minister of State for Electronics & Information Technology, launched QSim – Quantum Computer Simulator Toolkit, to enable Researchers and Students to carryout research in Quantum Computing in a cost effective manner.
About Qsim:
- QSimis an outcome of the project “Design and Development of Quantum Computer Toolkit (Simulator, Workbench) and Capacity Building”.
- This is one of the first initiatives in the country to address the common challenge of advancing the Quantum Computing research frontiers in India.
- This project is being executed collaboratively by IISc Bangalore, IIT Roorkee and C-DAC with the support of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India.
Importance:
We are coming to an era where conventional computing power growth through the traditional means of silicon and semiconductor is drawing to a close and now we are going to see the next generation of computing power growth comes from a combination of software new architectures, system redesign and new system paradigms and that is where the quantum computing comes and is clearly going to be the cutting edge of the future demands of computing power.
- QSim, the toolkit launched today, allows researchers and students to write and debug Quantum Code that is essential for developing Quantum Algorithms.
- Quantum systems are highly sensitive to disturbances from environment, even necessary controls and observations perturb them.
- The available and upcoming Quantum devices are noisy and techniques to bring down the environmental error rate are being intensively pursued.
- QSim allows researchers to explore Quantum Algorithms under idealized conditions and help prepare experiments to run on actual Quantum Hardware.
- QSim can serve as an important educational / research tool providing an excellent way to attract students / researchers to the field of Quantum Technology and provides a platform to acquire the skills of ‘programming’ as well as ‘designing’ real Quantum Hardware.
BRICS- AGRICULTURE RESEARCH PLATFORM
Focus: GS II- International Relations
Why in News?
Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare announced the operationalization of BRICS Agricultural Research Platform prepared and set up in India for strengthening the cooperation in the field of agricultural research & innovations amongst the BRICS member States.
About Agricultural Research Platform:
- The BRICS- Agricultural Research Platform, as a global platform for science-led agriculture will help in addressing the issues of world hunger, undernutrition, poverty and inequality by promoting sustainable agricultural development through strategic cooperation in agriculture and allied sector.
- The BRICS-ARP has been operationized to intensify cooperation in the areas of agricultural research, technology, policy, innovations and capacity building including technologies for smallholder farming and to sustainably increase yields and farmers income in the BRICS member countries.
- The platform shall escalate the exchange of research findings and innovation and best practices for upscaling in the respective BRICS Nations.
- The Coordinating Centre of the BRICS Agricultural Research Platform is housed at NASC Complex, Pusa under the governance of Department of Agricultural Research & Education/ICAR, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.
- The BRICS Nations have also appointed their focal points for BRICS-ARP to interact virtually through the platform and identify the common problems and develop joint projects for finding the solutions.
- Indian Council of Agricultural Research is the focal organization from India.
About BRICS
- BRICS is an informal group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (joined in 2010).
- The BRICS leaders’ summit is convened annually.
- BRICS does not exist in form of organization, but it is an annual summit between the supreme leaders of five nations.
- The Chairmanship of the forum is rotated annually among the members, in accordance with the acronym B-R-I-C-S.
- Together, BRICS accounts for about 42% of the world’s population and about 23% of the global GDP (Gross Domestic Product), and 17% of the world trade, making it a critical economic engine.
- The five nations account for 50 per cent of the world economic growth, 27% of the world area and 13.24% of World Bank voting power.
- Pitted as a counterweight to G7, the combine of developed economies, BRICS represents the world’s top emerging economies and claims to serve as a bridge between the developed and developing world.
